A reader named Zarkoff pointed out to me that with the latest Apple TV update, the Internet Radio is now working better than before. Well, I have good news and bad news regarding this.

Good news first. As I mentioned last time, Apple TV can play Internet Radio streams from playlists from a computer that it syncs with. However, iTunes on that computer has to be running at the same time otherwise, the stations would disappear from the Apple TV. With the latest update, the playlists would persist even if iTunes is not running or the computer is turned off. So that's the good news.

The bad news is that once you restart the Apple TV, the playlists containing the Internet Radio streams would disappear. I tried to get around this problem but nothing seemed to work. So for now, if you want to listen to Internet Radio streams, just sync and don't restart the Apple TV. Putting the Apple TV to sleep (holding down the "play" button) does not make the stations go away, however; so that's a little bit of good news.

So to recap on how to get Internet Radio working on your Apple TV, here are the steps:

1. From iTunes, save the Internet Radio streams (stations) in a playlist (or multiple playlists, that's up to you).
2. Make sure that Apple TV is configured to SYNC (not SHARE) with the computer with the Internet Radio playlists.
3. Sync.
4. Now, go to Music Menu->My Music->Playlists. You should see the playlist(s) with the Internet Radio streams.
5. At this point, you should be able to pick any stream and Apple TV should be able to play it.

As I mentioned, Apple TV should now be able to play the streams independent of whether the computer it synced with is on or not. However, if the Apple TV is restarted, you have to sync the stations all over again.

For this tip, I would like to thank Zarkoff for pointing it out to me. Also, if you have any useful tips about Apple TV, please let me know at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it I would like to compile a database of tips that we all can share.

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Comments (8)

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written by Steven in Santa Fe, NM , April 28, 2008

Yep, I came across this too by accident. Needless to say, this has become instrumental... to the point that in combination with podcasts and my own movie rips and downloads, I have little, if any reason, to use my DirectTV.

I much prefer what the internet, Itunes, and other sources, can provide.

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written by Matt , April 28, 2008

This is great! Now if only Pandora worked on the Apple TV!!

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written by Gerald Figal , April 28, 2008

Matt--You can play Pandora via the AirTunes function when paired with the Airfoil App, as I'm doing right now. Airfoil recognizing AppleTV and allows you to choose Safari (for example) as the audio source. Works great!

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written by Roger Meier , April 29, 2008

This doesn't seem to be working for me. I see the playlist on the AppleTV, but it is empty.
And when you say "synchronize the stations all over again", what do you mean exactly?

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written by robin , April 29, 2008

ATVFiles works as radio plug-in from the very beginning - it is much useful and just handy (say I have very attractive radio stations browsing interface) then any other combinations/ways I tried.... the key is just to create appropriate directories/files tree with art and pls files with streaming url inside - I hope you get the idea

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written by ichilton , April 30, 2008

Hi Robin,

Is there a guide / further info about that anywhere?

Thanks

Ian

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written by steve248 , May 04, 2008

How to restart the Apple tv? Thanks for your help.

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written by Luck Kanthatham , May 06, 2008

To restart the Apple TV, hold "down" button "menu" at the same time.

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